Poll Shows Democrats Lose Swing Voters Over Amnesty

U.S. President Barack Obama during a news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda at the East Room of the White House April 30, 2012 in Washington, DC. (Photo: by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

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Voters will side with the GOP if they fight President Obama’s effort to print work permits for millions of migrant workers, according to a new poll.

The large poll shows that 47 percent of the 1,593 respondents approve of Obama’s overall performance — but also shows lopsided opposition to his amnesty among the critical independent voters and lower-income voters that the GOP needs to persuade and turn out in 2016.

Just 19 percent of 691 people who earn less than $50,000 a year strongly support Obama’s amnesty move, while 40 percent strongly oppose. One in six of 693 blue-collar respondents, or 15 percent, strongly supported Obama’s decision, while 47 percent strongly opposed it.

By the end of February, the Senate’s GOP leadership is expected to force a floor vote on a House bill that would defund Obama’s November amnesty, and restore enforcement of many immigration laws that he and his deputies have ignored since 2010.

The amnesty is strongly backed by Democrats, progressive, business groups, Hispanic advocacy groups, most reporters covering the issue and by the cannery operators and meatpackers who want a reliable source of cheap migrant labor.

“This striking polling data underscores just how badly American workers are hoping Congress will protect them from the President’s imperial edicts,” said Stephen Miller, communications director for Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions.

The poll is a problem and an opportunity for the GOP leadership, which is struggling to balance the business demand for more cheap migrant labor, and the voters’ emotional demands for better jobs and higher wages.

If the GOP sides with the high-immigration alliance of business executives and Democratic progressives, “history may record this as the biggest missed opportunity a political party has ever faced,” said a Hill staffer.

It is also a problem for Senate Democrats, who need to pick up five GOP seats in the 2016 election to regain a Senate majority. High profile support for Obama’s amnesty won’t help them hold the four Senate seats in red states in 2016. On Tuesday, all 46 Senate Democrats tried to scare off GOP senators by signing a letter saying they would oppose defunding of Obama’s amnesty.

The poll reported that 54 percent of 563 independents, 29 percent of 575 Democrats and 81 percent of 455 Republicans said they would support “Republicans in Congress taking away federal funding for this executive order.”

In the Midwest, whose voters will likely tip the presidential election to the winner in 2016, 28 percent strongly support defunding, while 23 percent strongly oppose defunding. Twenty-four percent somewhat support the defunding, and 14 percent somewhat oppose the defunding.

In most questions, roughly 10 percent of respondents declined to give an opinion.

The strong support for Obama’s aid to illegal immigrants is concentrated among male Democrats, liberals, post-graduates and younger voters — nearly all of whom will vote for whoever wins the Democratic nomination.

The strong support for defunding the amnesty is driven by lopsided opposition to Obama’s amnesty program, which would give work-permits to perhaps five million migrants who entered the country as children or who have U.S.-born children, and also would end repatriations for nearly all 12 million illegals in the country.

In turn, that opposition is partly based on the public’s personal and private assessment of immigration’s economic impact on jobs and wages, and on their communities lifestyle and culture.